


well it makes me feel alright

by 5ambreakdown



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Baby Gay Patrick, Coming Out, Gen, Patrick Brewer is Gay, Queer Themes, happy national coming out day y'all!!, hiking to solve identity crises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ambreakdown/pseuds/5ambreakdown
Summary: He has felt more with David Rose in the past week than he did in fifteen years with Rachel. Despite the kissing, the more than kissing, the living together, the being engaged, the being together for almost two decades, nothing has been more intense and freeing than the combined mere hours he has spent with David Rose.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	well it makes me feel alright

**Author's Note:**

> i really liked this at first, then i hated it, and then i read it again and liked it more. this general concept of baby gay patrick hikes will definitely be reinterpreted by me later on, but, for now, enjoy this one ❤
> 
> title from "rainbow" by dodie

Patrick feels like he’s about to do something potentially very stupid. So naturally, he’s sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley, sun partially blinding his view. He’s not really looking anyway, so he hardly would have noticed. 

He couldn’t sleep that night, or the night before. Or any night the past few days, for that matter. He’s not tired, though - far from it.

He’s had stress induced insomnia and sleepless weeks that have left him empty and exhausted. He’s gone through the routine of figuring out how to operate on caffeine alone. It happened more and more each time he and Rachel patched things up, eventually going away as the familiarity of it all wore in. After he proposed, he suspected much of the same. For weeks, he had trouble sleeping. It’s like there was white noise in his head; he couldn’t get his brain to shut up, but he couldn’t finish a coherent thought to even himself. He had never felt worse, never more alone and isolated than he was with Rachel fast asleep next to him. She fit perfectly under his arm, her head on his chest, but it always felt off. She fell asleep so easily tangled around him, but her arm around his middle became more and more like a weight each day. He kept waiting for the exhaustion to wear him out, but it never left. If anything, the more tired he was the longer he couldn’t sleep. Everyday he felt numb, and he gave up hope that that would ever go away. So he grew more and more tired until he snapped.

This isn’t that. He _knows_ why he hasn’t been sleeping, and it isn’t burdensome in the slightest. When he realizes it’s morning after hours of slipping in and out of consciousness long enough to not remember when the shadows in the room started to recede, his stomach doesn’t churn at the mere thought of getting up. There’s still a weight there, but it’s more anticipation than dread. It’s a nice change of pace, one that he thinks he could live with. 

He should have seen it coming, really. He’s pushed it to the farthest corner of his mind for decades now. Maybe he didn’t always have the vocabulary for it when he was a kid, but it was still _there_. He never felt quite right with other kids his age as he grew up, like he needed to try harder when it seemed so easy for them, or they were all in on some inside joke that he didn’t know about. He assumed everyone felt that way, that they were all just faking it and did it well. Then, when, on rare occasion, he found people he connected with, it became harder and harder to keep that belief. How could it not be just him when there was no denying the difference of ease between hanging around the kids in his school theatre group and the kids he grew up with on his street? 

He still felt like he was missing something when all his friends started dating. There was no appeal to him, at all. He learned to chalk it up to being academically focused, or maybe even just a “late bloomer” as his mom once said. Whatever it was, he just wasn’t ready to date yet, that time would come. Besides, he had other things to worry about. A degree from a decent school so he could get a decent job and lead a decent life, that was his job.

His friends liked girls, he liked math. He was honestly okay with that. There was a structure to it all that he found graceful. Each problem had a set, solvable solution. There were rules and steps and processes that led you to a decisive answer. No room for ambiguity. He really, really liked that. 

Eventually, his friends somehow convinced him to ask out Rachel, and he found himself spending more and more time on his math homework, finding any excuse to cling to something rational, something he could understand. Because he didn’t understand this whole girlfriend thing at all. He figured that all the movies and books and songs were hyperbolic, fantasies. Love and relationships aren't always like that. You found someone you thought was good, decent, and made it work. Rachel was good, decent. Pretty, even. She laughed at his jokes and he didn’t mind kissing her. He thought it was nice. Patrick was okay with nice, and Rachel seemed to be okay with it, too. Give and take - that was what a relationship was.

Now, sitting on the precipice of a cliff in rural Ontario of all places, the thought process of younger self is incredibly amusing. Patrick realizes how oblivious he was as a teenager, how there were so many signs and just how _obvious_ it should have been to him. Now, there’s no denying it. 

He’s completely free of any obligations and assumptions that were tethered to him in his past life. No one expects anything from him here, so he’s free to explore his own desires, what he actually wants and not what’s practical for other people. 

And it’s been a giant goddamn revelation. He has felt more with David Rose in the past week than he did in fifteen years with Rachel. Despite the kissing, the more than kissing, the living together, the being engaged, the being together for almost two decades, nothing has been more intense and freeing than the combined mere hours he has spent with David Rose. 

That’s pretty damning. 

As shocking as it is to even himself that he would end up here, sitting on a cliff with what felt like an unrequited crush on this man, his strange but charming business client, it’s more freeing than anything else. _It’s all starting to make sense_ , he thinks.

He breathes in the fresh air, a solemn sort of peace to it. Still, there’s work left to be done and questions left to be answered back at his old home; he can’t be completely free yet.

He wants to sit in it now, though, the certainty of who he is, before it can be soured by anyone. He doesn’t want to have that conversation with Rachel, he doesn’t want to have to explain to his parents and family why he left. Because of all the excuses he made when he suddenly packed his life into a few suitcases and left, he knew deep down why he left, it wasn’t anything he told anyone.

Right now, though, he’s just Patrick Brewer, and that’s it. He’s said it before, in these past few months, after letting it marinate in his mind over the past while, making sure it fits. He’s whispered it tucked in bed at 3am, quiet enough to barely hear the words himself despite Ray being fast asleep. He once said it at the very outlook he’s at now, a little more confident and a little more loud. Once, when Ray was off showing houses, he yelled it in the living room, which ended up being slightly disappointing when it didn’t have some magical effect on him. He even started saying it around other people, too. Never _to_ them, just around, out in public where someone _could_ hear it - at the grocery store when a celebrity’s announcement graced tabloid headlines; whenever his phone’s navigation told him to “keep straight” when he decided to explore the region; to a pigeon that sat next to him on a park bench one afternoon. It was easier with each time, more natural and less thought behind it. 

Saying it to someone, though, made it final. _That changes things, makes it permanent, and that’s scary_ , he thinks as he spots a flock of birds flying across the sky. Then he laughs, because Patrick Brewer is the last person who should be talking about big, scary announcements. Still, it would be nice to get it over with, just to tell them. 

He almost told the cashier at Brebner’s once, but by the time he finished working up the nerve to do so, he was being handed his receipt. He couldn’t really tell anyone in town, either. He wanted people to know, yes, absolutely. Sometimes he just wanted everyone to know, just like how they know to never take their car to Bob’s Garage or to never order fish at the café. Telling Ray would ensure that everyone in town knew within 48 hours, but then it would be a thing, and Patrick didn’t want a thing. He wanted people to _already_ know. He wanted a done deal: no drama, no mess.

He makes a mental list in his head of people he could tell, and Ray is the first one crossed off. He thinks maybe Twyla, but he realizes that could end with a concerning story told in too bright of a tone or her trying to set him up with the nephew of her mom’s ex-boyfriend. Neither scenarios are ideal. Jocelyn would probably read too much into it if she was the first person he told, jumping onto the possibility that Patrick saw her as a sort of mentor. Ronnie didn’t seem to be one for small talk. 

_David would get it_ , his brain very unhelpfully supplies. David would definitely get it and would be a great, supportive person if - _and when, hopefully_ \- Patrick told him. He genuinely likes David’s business idea and wants it to be a success. He’s even been toying with the idea of coming on as an investor, but he doesn’t want David to think he has some sort of ulterior motive, that this is some long term ploy to get in his pants. He’s definitely interested - in both the store and David - but Patrick doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea about either of those two things. Right now, telling David is just too high stakes.

He wants it to be casual, inconsequential. He wants to tell someone and for it to have no bearing on either of their lives. All he wants is to get it out there. 

“Hey, man, are you okay?”

Patrick snaps out of his thoughts to look at the concerned woman standing a few feet from him. It’s getting dark now, he notices. _Shit, how long have I been here?_

The woman looks extremely concerned now when Patrick doesn’t say anything. He stares off into the distance, still pulling himself out of his thoughts to fully register that he should probably say something. He focuses on a tree far off, maintaining eye contact not to ground himself from an anxiety spiral, but as if looking away will disturb the progress he’s made this evening.

“I’m gay.” He doesn’t even think about it, it just hurtles out. Under any other circumstance, he would never come out to a stranger, let alone have it be the only utterance he gives them. He needed this, though, a chance to state it matter-of-factly and not have to worry about a reaction.

He isn’t shaking, he doesn’t feel his face heating up; he feels okay. Every other time, his body has had some sort of reaction. One time his throat tightened, another time he got hives. The heart palpitations and nausea and headache once it was all over with were normal. At first, they started to lessen the more he did it, but once he got a little braver with when and where he said it, that’s when he found out it probably isn’t going to get any easier.

This wasn’t like that, though. It was almost easy. It _was_ easy. Now, he just has to tell someone he knows the name of, or at the very least be able to identify in a police lineup.

He’s not even looking at her, still, just starting off into the view, eyes still on that tree.

“Oh, um, good for you, I guess?” she responds, left more than a little confused by the entire encounter.

She’s gone as fast as she arrived, but Patrick can’t bring himself to care.

He eventually finds himself back at Ray’s, damp hair soaking his pillow, a small smile on his face. He still didn’t feel great. He was still a little heavy, still struggling to take a deep breath. But damn has he felt better than he has in years. Definitely not all the way there yet, but he took a big step today. A really big step. He feels a little braver, nervous for the next step but ready for it nonetheless. 

David Rose’s business license came while he was on his hike. He’ll have to drop it off at Rose Apothecary tomorrow since Ray is fully booked with who knows what. If this newfound bravery or rush of adrenaline sticks with him for a few more days, he might just go on ahead and do that potentially very stupid thing. Only now, he doesn’t think it’s so stupid. 

For the first time in a while, Patrick goes to sleep and doesn’t wake up until his alarm starts blaring.

**Author's Note:**

> happy national coming out day, y'all!! you are loved so, so, so much. coming out can be extremely intimate, or not at all, and that is your choice to make. this is your timeline, no one else's. if no one else tells you today, i love you and i am proud of you, wherever you're at in your life.


End file.
